Even with prices at the pump hovering around $3.50, that’s a fraction of the prices in other rich countries

Every year without fail, as the days get longer and warmer, gas prices begin to shoot up. Throw in intense turmoil in the Middle East, and the annual price skyrocket and accompanying fretting began even earlier this year. But while gas prices have risen to more than $3 a gallon in the United States, remember that gas here is still cheaper than many places–especially developed nations–around the world.

This infographic from Flowing Data shows where–according to gas price tables on Wikipedia–people are paying more… read on

Lead emissions from a battery plant in eastern China have poisoned more than 100 villagers, including 35 children, state news agency Xinhua reported on Friday, the latest in a string of heavy metal pollution cases in the country.

A total of 139 villagers in a village near Taizhou city in coastal Zhejiang province have been found to have elevated lead levels in their blood, Xinhua cited the provincial health department as saying in a statement.

The Philips AmbientLED 12.5-watt A19 LED lightbulb (quite a name!) is probably the favorite LED bulb that I’ve tried so far. It beats the competition when it comes to light output (800 lumens vs. 450-590 lumens for the other LEDs that I’ve tried), the design of the bulb is very innovative, and light quality is excellent.

Read on for my full review and more technical specs on the Philips AmbientLED…. read on

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced yesterday an enormous expansion in coal mining that threatens to increase U.S. climate pollution by an amount equivalent to more than half of what the United States currently emits in a year. A statement from Wild Earth Guardians, Sierra Club, and Defenders of Wildlife put the announcement in perspective:

When burned, the coal threatens to release more than 3.9 billion tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, equal to the annual emissions from 300 coal-fired power plants, further cementing the United States as a leading contributor to…. read on

King crabs haven’t historically caroused in Antarctic waters — it’s simply been too cold for the famed crustaceans. But warming waters have allowed crusading crabs to march further south than they have in millions of years. Which is bad news for the diverse sea life currently thriving in the underwater habitats around the Antarctic peninsula: Seeing as how they’ve been living in a crab-less environment for 40 million years, scientists now fear that Antarctic animals like brittle sea stars, mussels, and sponges will be sitting ducks for the marauding king crabs… read on

Temperatures in Tibet rose last year to the highest level since records began for the remote Himalayan country, which scientists say is particularly vulnerable to global warming, state media reported on Friday.

The Associated Press recently reported that at least 27 of 104 nuclear reactors across the United States are leaking potentially dangerous levels of tritium into the groundwater around the plants.

The scope of the problem surfaced after the recent discovery of a leak at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. According to the AP, new tests have shown that the levels of tritium in the wells at the Vernon, Vermont site are more than three-and-a-half times the federal safety standard.

“We’ve heard this one before; Obama threatening to sever subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. He called for ending the subsidies during his SOTU, and was doing so even before that. Now, he’s proposing that $36 billion worth of those subsidies for oil and $2.3 billion for coal (both get $70 billion a year in total) get stripped from the budget–which would be great. Too bad special interests will almost certainly keep this from happening.